


He Wakes To Sunlight

by Guardian_Rose



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Groundhog Day (1993) Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Era, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, It ends happy I promise, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 00:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21382945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guardian_Rose/pseuds/Guardian_Rose
Summary: “Give me the goblet, Arthur,” he says, ignoring Arthur’s attempts at lightening their predicament. “This isn’t going to happen your way twice.”Arthur frowns, not quite a scowl but getting close. “Merlin.”“Don’t ‘Merlin’ me, I’m not stupid. It’s not happening again.”It’s thanks to his own vigilance that he catches the twitch of Arthur’s fingers just before he reaches to grab the chalices, it allows Merlin to beat him to it. In an odd parody of the first time, he pours the liquid into only one and holds it close to his chest.***On the sixteenth, he sits Arthur down during breakfast and tries to explain the loop he’s stuck in. Arthur takes him to Gaius for help. Gaius can do nothing but keep him under observation. Arthur leaves and comes back only to ensure he’s eaten dinner then goes again. It’s one of the worse days. He doesn’t try to tell him again.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 296





	He Wakes To Sunlight

“This is far too reminiscent of the last time we were at this beach.”

Merlin quirks a brow, if they were in any other situation he’d have laughed but as it is he is far more preoccupied with figuring out how to get that chalice away from Arthur. Everything is the same. The goblets. The rickety table. The ocean calmly lapping at the rocks behind them. They’re alone this time though. It’s all up to them. They cannot leave, they’ve tried. As soon as they sat down, someone’s spell flickered to life and holds them still.

“Give me the goblet, Arthur,” he says, ignoring Arthur’s attempts at lightening their predicament. “This isn’t going to happen your way twice.”

Arthur frowns, not quite a scowl but getting close. “Merlin.”

“Don’t ‘Merlin’ me, I’m not stupid. It’s not happening again.”

It’s thanks to his own vigilance that he catches the twitch of Arthur’s fingers just before he reaches to grab the chalices, it allows Merlin to beat him to it. In an odd parody of the first time, he pours the liquid into only one and holds it close to his chest. Now Arthur is frowning. Furious. Hurt rooted deeply in his eyes, the thinning of his lips, the white of his knuckles. 

“Merlin.”

He shakes his head, he’d stand if he could. Would run away with it but the spell holds strong. 

“Don’t you  _ dare _ \--”

“For the record, I’m sorry,” he says right before drinking the poison down in one. 

The noise Arthur makes is one of someone who’s soul had just been wrecked, torn in half. The spell lifts instantly and Merlin tips to the side. It burns still in his throat. Freezes as it goes down, a horrible stabbing in his chest like he’s swallowed knives. Is this what Arthur had felt? Is this one of the many wounds that haunt his nights?

Arthur doesn’t catch him before he hits the ground, crumpling round himself, cheek pressed to the rough stone. He’s there a moment later, shaking his shoulders. Calling his name. The edges of his vision are going dark. His magic is rebelling against him. Sparking. There’s nothing he can do to stop it as it makes itself clear to all the world. But the world doesn’t even seem surprised. Doesn’t seem to care at all. Something pulls, not painfully, softly, like an implosion of a far away stars, and then he’s gone. 

***

He wakes up to sunlight in blond hair. To lethargic terror singing in his blood. Arthur stirs as Merlin searches for a pulse under his own skin without truly thinking it through.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, voice gravel, “what are you doing?”

At last he finds the faint heartbeat and, after the best measured breath he can manage, he lets go and rolls over, back to Arthur. 

“Nothing, go back to sleep.”

“Merlin,” he repeats, softer this time as he moves closer, wrapping his arms around Merlin’s chest, tugging him back. “What’s wrong?”

“Just a nightmare, I’m fine.”

“You’re a bad liar, Merlin.”

Merlin hums but doesn’t argue, too tired trying to push the nightmare away. It was so realistic. 

The day passes with a perpetual sense of deja-vu. The exact same breakfast ‘stolen’ off of Arthur’s plate. The same affectionate nudges and shoulder brushes from Arthur as they walk to and from meeting to meeting. The same scolding from Gaius about drawing attention to his magic if he continues to spend every night in Arthur’s quarters, increased exposure and all that. 

The alarm sets in when they depart for a ride to see how Arthur’s new horse will cope with a full-armoured load. Merlin bows under the paranoia on his shoulders and asks to go another way, to avoid the beach. Arthur laughs him off, tell him to stop trying to cut their ride short just because he hates riding. They dismount and walk to the rocks. The table is there. 

“That’s odd,” Arthur says, really meaning that that’s wrong. 

The table was cast into the sea days after the poisoned cup fiasco by Arthur himself. Merlin had thrown in the goblets, had watched them crash against the rocks. 

Merlin flung his arm out, grabbing onto Arthur’s wrist. “Let’s leave.”

Arthur turns to him in confusion. “We can’t, Merlin, whoever it was is back--”

“It could be anyone, Arthur, it could just be a picnic someone left behind!”

He shrinks away from Arthur’s searching gaze as Arthur holds onto his shoulders, Merlin holds onto his wrist still, dipping his thumb under the armour to trace the veins in his wrist. The lifeblood flowing. 

“What’s wrong? What is it, love?” 

Merlin winces internally, braving a look into Arthur’s eyes. “We need to leave.”

A long moment passes within which they each fight not to back down, Merlin sighs in relief when Arthur eventually nods and lets go. They return to the citadel in silence. Arthur cancels his final meeting, hands over training to Leon. Merlin gets an early dinner for Arthur but doesn’t eat himself, there’s a sick tangle in his stomach that rebels everytime he even thinks about eating. He goes to bed early. Crawls under their covers, leaving Arthur to work at his desk on the multitude of letters, contracts and miscellaneous signature needing paper. He does for half an hour or so, but then the scratching of quill is traded for lifted blankets and a warm body turning him over. Merlin hides his face in Arthur’s chest, melting into the hands running through his hair and trailing up his spine. The kisses pressed to the top of his head fall into murmured promises of love, of trust, of safety. Home. 

***

He wakes to the same room. The same hair tickling his nose. The breakfast is the same. He doesn’t eat much, only what will assuage the most of Arthur’s worries. When the meetings all end the same, he pulls Arthur aside. Fakes an illness. Arthur still goes but he’s dug himself a hole he cannot climb out of. So he stays in bed. He waits. Whether Arthur comes home or not, he doesn’t know because he wakes up the next day as if none of it ever happened. 

***

On the fourth go round he gives up on the denial. He’s living the same day over and over. 

***

On the tenth, he starts to find the joy in it. He keeps Arthur in bed all day. Their actions will have no consequences after all.

***

On the sixteenth, he sits Arthur down during breakfast and tries to explain the loop he’s stuck in. Arthur takes him to Gaius for help. Gaius can do nothing but keep him under observation. Arthur leaves and comes back only to ensure he’s eaten dinner then goes again. It’s one of the worse days. He doesn’t try to tell him again. 

***

On the twenty-first, he slips up. He’s gotten used to using his magic around the castle with ease during this loop because he knows every servant’s path by now. Knows where and when people will be. But things start to slip out of mind as his guard begins dropping. He’s still persuading Arthur not to go for the ride today, he knows exactly which reason will achieve this quickest, when he knocks over his goblet but instead of letting it spill diluted wine everywhere, his eyes flash gold and it rights itself. Arthur stares at it. Merlin stares at him.

“Merlin…”

“Arthur.”

This may turn out to be worse than the first loop when he’d drank the poison, he thinks.

“Merlin.”

“I’ve got to go.”

He falls asleep in his own bed for the first time in months. 

***

He wakes up with Arthur. He leaves before he wakes and spends the whole day alone.

***

He gives up. 

***

The twenty-ninth day, Merlin doesn’t fight it. He does everything to the T. An exact replica of that first day. They go to the beach. They are strapped down to the table seats by the spell. They argue over who will drink. Merlin takes it all again. Arthur’s scream is no less heartbreaking. 

***

This new pattern carries on for a while. The poison has to be the key. This test of wits and love. Devotion. Maybe whoever is doing this is trying to break Merlin’s loyalty to Arthur. It won’t work. 

***

He thought he’d hit rock bottom when he’d allowed them to start returning to the test. He’d been wrong. He hits the bottom when he spells the drink away from Arthur who’d been a split second faster than Merlin’s dulling reflexes. Arthur shouts at him. But not for having magic, not for using his magic against him. For drinking. Again. There are tears in Merlin’s eyes when he collapses this time.

*** 

He’s tried everything. Nothing breaks the loop. It’s a curse on his heart, a mould growing in the dank confines of this neverending hell, but he wonders...questions whether he’s right to stop Arthur drinking. To take the blow for him. He wonders if breaking Arthur’s heart over and over and over is better or worse than Arthur breaking his. 

He’s selfless in the end. He wishes he weren’t so.

***

“This is far too reminiscent of the last time we were at this beach.”

Merlin quirks a brow, if they were in any other situation he’d have laughed but as it is he is far more preoccupied with figuring out how to get that chalice into Arthur’s hands without making it obvious. Everything is the same. The goblets. The rickety table. The ocean calmly lapping at the rocks behind them. They’re together but he feels achingly alone. 

“Is there any way I can persuade you not to do this?” Merlin asks, not daring to give into the urge to reach out and hold Arthur’s hand but too scared that any movement will startle Arthur into drinking. 

Arthur’s smile is grim. “You know the answer, love.”

“I hate you,” Merlin says through the emotion clogging his throat.

“I know.” 

Arthur takes the goblets and drinks them one after the other. It’s awful. Merlin has been waiting for the spell to lift and manages to get there before Arthur hits the ground. He cradles Arthur’s head in his lap, smooths his hair, kisses his cheek. He tells Arthur the same reassurances that were whispered to him. Arthur’s last breath shudders in his chest, exhales with the softest reassurance of love, of forgiveness. Merlin lets his tears fall without hindrance then. Sobs and screams. The pain doubled with the hatred of the knowledge that this is what he’d put Arthur through so many times. 

He passes out next to Arthur. He doesn’t even care if the loop will take him away again or not.

***

He wakes up to sunlight in blond hair. To lethargic terror singing in his blood. Arthur stirs as Merlin searches for a pulse under Arthur’s skin without truly thinking it through. 

“Merlin,” Arthur says, voice gravel, “what are you doing?”

Merlin bites back a sob as he throws himself onto Arthur. Arthur who is looking up at the ceiling like hellscape Merlin has been living with just descended on him. The way that Arthur holds onto him for dear life...maybe he has. 

“We’re not going near that beach again,” Arthur says eventually, “and we’re going to have a long talk about your self-sacrificing tendencies.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3
> 
> No beta, all mistakes my own
> 
> Prompts welcome here and on my writing tumblr [WordToTheRose ](https://wordtotherose.tumblr.com/) or come say hi on my main [Guardian-Rose-Petal](https://guardian-rose-petal.tumblr.com/)


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